No sale: Obama can’t obscure gap between his record and his rhetoric

Americans are used to reality shows. Yet for the last four days, we’ve seen an alternate-reality show, courtesy of the Democratic convention – one that depicted the worst president in U.S. history as a compassionate genius held back from even more staggering feats only by the evil people in the other party.

But last night, when Barack Obama took center stage in Charlotte, N.C., and had to make the case either that his first term was far better than most people thought or that his second term would be far better than his first, he couldn’t do it. The gap between his record of the past four years and his typically soaring rhetoric was just too big. His failure to succeed with his past promises made his new promises impossible to swallow.

The president described himself as the architect of a new economy with a sounder “basic bargain” with working men and women. But what is that based on? Unemployment is far higher than the president predicted when the $800 billion stimulus package passed in 2009. Joblessness remains over 8 percent – the worst streak since the Depression – and is actually far higher when one counts those who have stopped looking for work. The jobs that have been created are generally low-paying.

His policy has flopped. Why? Partly because the stimulus was far more about giving money to local and state governments to protect public employees than helping the private sector. But also because our disconnected leader believes, as he said one day when he got off-script, that “the private sector is doing fine.” Yet even as Obama scares business and inhibits growth, he describes himself as working closely with business leaders.

Consider this: The single best economic news of recent years – the explosive growth in American gas and oil production because of new extraction technologies – occurred despite the Obama administration, not because of it. Yet Thursday night, he took credit for reducing our dependence on foreign oil!

The president barely even mentioned what is supposed to be his singular accomplishment – because he knows the public has figured out that Obamacare betrays all the basic promises made about it. It won’t cut costs. It won’t let people keep their doctors because it is so poorly crafted that it actually gives private employers a big financial incentive to drop coverage and let workers get health insurance from state-run “exchanges.” And given the shortage of primary-care doctors, how can anyone argue that stretching them even more thinly will yield better care?

For all the president’s sweeping claims to speak for America, his record is no better now that it was in 2010 when Republicans picked up more than 60 House seats by running against him.

Yet Thursday, Obama improbably offered himself as a shrewd reformer who deserved the chance to pursue more “bold, persistent experimentation” to revive the economy. Really?

He told us he was determined to bring 1 million manufacturing jobs to America. What is absolutely crucial to creating and preserving such jobs? Reasonably priced energy. Whose energy secretary is on record as saying our gasoline should cost $10 a gallon, just like in Europe? Barack Obama’s.

He told us he was just the man to bring the deficit down. But what is absolutely crucial to that happening? Honesty about unsustainable entitlements and actually cutting government programs. Who demagogues on entitlements while demanding the right to print more borrowed money? Barack Obama.

We need change. America desperately needs relief from a leader who looks at modern history and comes to the inexplicable conclusion that government always knows best. A leader whose description of successful businesspeople was suffused with sarcasm in his infamous July 13 remarks in Roanoke, Va. A leader who pretends to promote civility while never rebuking his foaming followers who depict his critics as racists, misogynists, Nazis and worse.

We can do far better than Barack Obama, and we desperately need to. Jan. 20 can’t come soon enough. Let’s turn the page.